hanging

Pluralhangings

1. 1
   adjective

   Fastened at the top so that the rest dangles freely without support below.

   The hanging vines covered the entire garden wall.

   Workers repaired the hanging scaffold outside the office tower.

   Similarsuspended, dangling, trailing, pendent

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of killing a person, or oneself, by suspension from the neck with a rope.

   The judge sentenced the convicted man to death by hanging.

   Several hangings took place in the prison yard that year.

   Note

   The noun has its own lineage: Middle English hangynge, with the older Old English words hengen and hōhing behind it. As a method it is uncountable (hanging was the penalty). As a single event it counts (the hanging of the bandits, several hangings). Thomas Otway's The Atheist (1728) treats fear of it as a deterrent: who would not steal, a character asks, "were it not for fear of the Gallows?"

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle of hang.

   The crew is hanging banners across the street.

   Volunteers spent hours hanging posters around town.

   Note

   One spelling covers two jobs here: the participle of progressive tenses (the coat is hanging by the door) and the gerund that names the activity (hanging wallpaper takes patience). It serves both the intransitive verb, to be suspended, and the transitive one, to put something up. The awkward choice between hung and hanged belongs only to the past forms. The -ing form stays the same whether the object is a picture or a condemned person.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A decorative object that is hung up, such as a curtain, tapestry, or poster.

   An embroidered hanging decorated the entrance hall.

   The museum displayed medieval hangings woven with gold thread.

   Similardrapery, tapestry

   Note

   The decorative noun comes from the same Middle English source as the execution sense and is most often met in the plural: wall hangings, the hangings on a tree. It covers anything put up for show, such as curtains, Gobelins tapestries or posters. That makes it the umbrella word when the material does not matter. Use tapestry or curtain when it does.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The manner in which decorative pieces are positioned and displayed on a wall or in a room.

   The curator's hanging arranged the portraits by historical period.

   An asymmetrical hanging gave the salon a modern feel.

   Similararrangement, display, installation, layout

   Note

   Gallery language for the arrangement rather than the objects. Where the decorative object is a thing on the wall, this is the scheme that places those things: their spacing, height and grouping. It is usually uncountable, so a visitor complains about cramped hanging in a gallery. A curator's choices can then be judged as a composition in their own right.

6. 6
   adjective

   Of a chess piece, unprotected and open to capture by the opponent.

   Black overlooked the hanging pawn and lost it for nothing.

   Leaving a piece hanging that early usually costs the game.

   Similarundefended, unprotected, loose

   Oppositedefended, protected

   Note

   A chess player's word for material left undefended, used mostly after a verb: a knight is hanging, or a player leaves a pawn hanging. The picture is of a piece left dangling with nothing underneath to hold it up. Spotting an opponent's hanging pieces, and never leaving your own, is among the first tactical habits a player learns, because such a piece can be taken for nothing.

7. 7
   adjectiveslang

   Of a pitch, badly thrown by the pitcher and therefore easy for the batter to hit.

   He crushed the hanging slider for a three-run homer.

   The reliever left a curveball hanging and paid for it.

   Note

   Baseball slang for the off-speed pitch that fails to do its job. A slider, curveball or breaking ball should dive, but this one seems to float in the strike zone the way something suspended does. The word sits before the pitch's name (a hanging slider) or after leave (he left a curve hanging). It is casual baseball talk and carries no meaning outside the game.

8. 8
   adjectiveslangUK

   Of a person, ugly and very unattractive, to the point of being disgusting.

   Everyone in the pub agreed that the bloke chatting her up was hanging.

   Honestly, mate, your ex was hanging, and you can do much better.

   Similarminging, rough, hideous, ugly, gross

   Oppositefit, gorgeous, attractive

   Note

   A Manchester insult about a person's looks that spread into wider British slang. It works as a verdict at the end of a sentence rather than before a noun. In the 2007 screenplay Summer Scars, a teenager denies fancying a boy with "'e's hanging." It cannot be graded with -er, so speakers strengthen it with an intensifier instead. It is blunt and rude: fine among friends and wounding anywhere else.

9. 9
   adjective

   Of text or an element, extending past the normal margins of a page.

   The bibliography used a hanging indent to set off each entry.

   Hanging punctuation pushes commas slightly beyond the right margin for a cleaner edge.

   Note

   A typesetter's word, used above all of punctuation. In hanging punctuation, commas, hyphens and opening quote marks sit just outside the text block, so the letters rather than the marks line up with the margin and the eye reads the edge as straight. The same adjective names the hanging indent. It does not take degrees: one line cannot be more hanging than another.

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